SFSC MOFAC Presents Lunch and Learn: Arts In The Parks

AVON PARK, Fla.–Oct. 27, 2015–South Florida State College’s Museum of Florida Art and Culture (MOFAC) presents “Lunch and Learn: Arts in the Parks,”  Thursday, Nov. 5, noon-1 p.m., in Building G, Room 101, SFSC Highlands Campus. Mollie Doctrow, artist and MOFAC curator, shares her experience as an artist-in-residence at Petrified Forest National Park.

Lunches are $5 each, and includes one six-inch sub cold cut combo and a bottle of water. To place your order, call 863-784-7195, leave a message with how many lunches are needed, and pay when you pick up.

SFSC MOFAC is open to the public Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, 12:30-4:30 p.m., one hour prior to each Artist and Matinee series performance, and by appointment for group tours. For more information about the museum and its exhibitions and workshops or to request a museum tour, contact Doctrow, at ext. 7240 at 863-453-6661, 465-5300, 773-2252, or 494-7500 or visit the SFSC MOFAC website http://mofac.org/ or Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/mofac. 

AVON PARK, Fla.–Oct. 27, 2015–South Florida State College will offer two continuing education seminars for Certified Crop Advisers on Thursday, Nov. 19, 8 a.m.-6 p.m., on the Highlands Campus, Building T, Room 20.

A 5 contact hour nutrient management seminar will run 8 a.m.-1 p.m. A 5 contact hour integrated pest management seminar will run 1-6 p.m.

Certified Crop Advisers may earn 10 contact hours by attending both seminars or 5 contact hours for attendance at either the morning or afternoon session.

Registration includes a working lunch and snacks. Registration deadline is Friday, Nov. 13. For more information, or to request a registration packet, contact Lorrie Key at 784-7033 or CorporateTraining@southflorida.edu.

AVON PARK, Fla.–Oct. 23, 2015–Academic honor societies at South Florida State College inducted 60 new members at an evening ceremony on Oct. 22 at the Highland Campus.

Students, their families, and SFSC administrators were on hand as 50 students recited in unison the Phi Theta Kappa Honor Society oath of membership, joining the international honor society that recognizes distinguished academic achievement by students in two-year academic programs.

Students completing their four-year degree programs were inducted into the International Society of Baccalaureate Scholars. In all, 10 students who are wrapping up their bachelor’s degree coursework took the oath of membership in the ISBS.

J.J. Moye, a professor of mathematics at SFSC, served as the guest speaker. In his remarks he encouraged students to rethink the common notions of success. Rather than measure their success by everyday measures, Moye, a PTK member from his undergraduate days at SFSC, exhorted the students to look instead at what brings them a sense of personal accomplishment.

As the ceremony drew to close, the inductees stepped to a candlelit table upon which lay each honor society’s membership book. One by one, they affixed their signatures in the books, recording their status as scholars of distinction at SFSC.

Phi Theta Kappa Honor Society Inductees

Hunter Altman, Levi Anderson, Marissa Baldwin, Jorge Barragan, Mary Maria Beadle, Hannah Belcher, Brandon Bowyer, Fabiana Castro, Savannah Christensen, Thomas Cook, Paola Cruz, Daniel Duque, John Eason, Mathew Estima, Lauren Falls, Katherine Fernandez, Treson Francis, Breanna Godwin, Catalina Hernandez, Johnathan Hernandez, Mayra Hernandez, Tyler Johnson, Kathleen Kennedy-Lowie, Tim Koning, Chase Langston, Pritesh Limbachia, Emily Little, Chris Maher, Marcos Merlo, Margarita Montero, Donnie Mullins, Melisa Mullins, Stephanie Narciso, Celina Nuevo, Selina Olguin, Luis Ortegon, Jessica Parker, Kayleen Prestridge, Hector Ramirez, David Sams Jr, Victoria Sawicki, Kayla Schock, Stephanie Skipper, Trevor Smith, Erika Soto-Angeles, Mary Stacy, Araceli Valdez, Juan Villafuerte-Albor, Brandi White, Maria Zamora.

AVON PARK, Fla.–Oct. 20, 2015–Acclaimed TV late night show host, admired stand-up comedian, best-selling children’s book author, much-in-demand corporate speaker, lovable TV and movie voice-over artist, pioneering car builder and mechanic, and philanthropist Jay Leno is scheduled to appear Thursday, Nov. 19, 7 p.m., at South Florida State College’s 1,460-seat Alan Jay Wildstein Center for the Performing Arts, Highlands Campus, Avon Park.  Tickets, which are $55, $70, $80 and $98, are available online at www.sfscarts.org or by calling the SFSC Box Office at 863-784-7178. Ample free parking is available.

Leno, who dominated late night television ratings for two decades, has returned to television with a new weekly, one hour CNBC primetime series, “Jay Leno’s Garage.” The series will cover all things automotive including classic cars, super cars, restoration projects, road tests, investments, and the inner workings of the car collectors’ market. “Jay Leno’s Garage” explores the world of cars, never forgetting that it’s the people behind the wheel who provide the real stories. Jay will travel the country on the hunt for the car world’s most radical rides and highlight the passion and the stories behind them.

Honored by the Television Academy with an Emmy for “Outstanding Comedy, Variety or Music Series” Leno is the recipient of the People’s Choice Award and a star on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame.   He is also the first person to drive the pace car of all major NASCAR events.

Opening the performance is Don Most who is best known for his co-starring role as Ralph Malph on the long running television series “Happy Days.” Most is currently touring the country with his jazz sextet performing standards from the Great American Songbook. The Hollywood Times calls his show “first rate” and “hotter than July.”  Recently, Most was seen in a recurring role on the hit TV show, “Glee,” as well as starring roles in the indie film, “The Yankles,” and “Chez Upshaw,” starring Kevin Pollack and Illeana Douglas.

SFSC presents a cultural arts series of performances from November through April.   Upcoming performances include The Midtown Men on Dec. 5; Blue Suede Shoes on Jan. 9; The Willis Clan on Jan. 23; The Buddy Holly Story on Feb. 4; Ballroom: South Beach Style on Feb. 16; Saturday Night Fever on Feb. 24; and Bobby Vinton on March 22.   For season information and videos, visit www.sfscarts.org.

AVON PARK, Fla.–Oct. 20, 2015–For those who’ve been yearning to write the Great American Novel, now there is no excuse to put it off for another year.

The South Florida State College library invites folks to unleash the Hemmingway within by joining writers here and across the country to participate in NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month, by writing a 50,000-word novel during November.

The library on SFSC’s Highlands Campus will host a series of Come Write In events in conjunction with NaNoWriMo.

“National Novel Writing Month is a wonderful opportunity for people to dive into their imaginations and do one of the most crucial things in life: create,” said Grant Faulkner, executive director of NaNoWriMo.

SFSC’s library kicks off the novel writing sprint on Wednesday, Oct. 28, noon — 3 p.m., with writing-themed activities, including word challenges, a plot bunny auction, and more.

Last year, more than 325,000 writers accepted the challenge to produce a 50,000-word piece of fiction. In the end, nearly 60,000 writers met their goal.

An initiative among NaNoWriMo, libraries, and bookstores, Come Write In events across the nation will offer writing space, community, and opportunities for writers to meet up with each other.

SFSC’s Library will offer open writing hours during normal library hours, Monday through Friday.

Would-be novelists can sign up at nanowrimo.org to access participant forums, seek advice, connect with mentors, and find local Come Write In events.

SFSC welcomes participants to celebrate the end of the month-long writing binge with its TGIO (Thank God it’s Over) party, on Wednesday, Dec. 2, noon to 3 p.m., in the library on the Highlands Campus.

Now in its 16^th year, organizers expects to see nearly 1,000 libraries sponsor local events for writers.

The SFSC library on the Highlands Campus, at 600 W. College Dr, Avon Park, is open Monday through Thursday, 7:30 a.m. — 9 p.m. The library is open on Fridays, 7:30 a.m— 5 p.m.

“Everyone has a story that needs to come to life,” Faulkner said. “NaNoWriMo helps people find their voice in the act of writing.”

For more information, contact Claire Miller at Claire.Miller@southflorida.edu.

AVON PARK, Fla.–Oct. 19, 2015–The South Florida State College Performing Arts Club will host the annual Thrill the World event on Saturday, Oct. 24 on the Highlands Campus in the Alan Jay Wildstein Center for the Performing Arts at SFSC.  

The SFSC Performing Arts Club is recruiting zombies of all ages to participate in the Thrill the World event in central Florida.  All zombies throughout the world will dance to “Thriller” at precisely 6 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 24.   To participate, register online at www.sfscarts.org. Registration is $5 per person and participants can attend the dance lessons, participate in the global event and attend the screening of the zombie horror classic, Night of the Living Dead.

Thrill the World is an annual worldwide simultaneous dance of Michael Jackson’s song, “Thriller.” This tribute to Michael Jackson was founded by Ines Markeljevic, a dance choreographer and instructor in Toronto, Canada. It is her unprecedented Thriller dance instructional teaching videos that make it possible for dancers, non-dancers, young and young-at-heart learn the dance in a very short time.  In 2013, zombies at 134 events in 22 countries and six continents raised $68,000 for charities.

Thrill the World South Florida State College is a fundraising event for the SFSC Performing Arts Club. “It’s not about how well someone dances,” said club member Denzil Snipe. “Our goal is to have 50 zombies of all ages come out for this fun event.  Elementary school kids can do it and grandmas can do it, too.”

Dance lessons will be offered on Saturday, Oct. 24, 2-4 p.m., the Alan Jay Wildstein Center for the Performing Arts at SFSC.  The global dance begins at 6 p.m.  There is no charge for spectators.

“If you can’t attend the dance lessons, go online at www.thrilltheworld.com, and watch the video.   You can learn the dance in your home and then join the club onstage,” said Cindy Garren, SFSC director, Cultural Programs.

The Performing Arts Club will also show the George Romero classic horror movie, Night of the Living Dead, at 7 p.m., Oct. 24, in the SFSC University Center. Night of the Living Dead premiered on Oct. 1, 1968 and became a financial success.   It has since become a cult classic, eventually garnering critical acclaim.  The film has been selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the National Film Registry, as a film deemed, “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.” The story follows characters Ben (Duane Jones), Barbra (Judith O’Dea), and five others trapped in a rural farmhouse in Western Pennsylvania, which is attacked by unnamed “living dead” monsters drawing on earlier depictions in popular culture of zombies.

For more information, contact Garren at 863-784-7177 or email thrilltheworldsfsc@gmail.com.

AVON PARK, Fla.–Oct. 16, 2015–A Landscape architect, sculptor, photographer, and artists of other genres all came home last week to South Florida State College to exhibit their work and talk about their careers in art.

In all, eight SFSC alumni gathered at an evening program on the college’s Highlands Campus to launch the exhibition and talk about art education and the success they have found in doing art.

The exhibition, “Coming Home 2015,” marks SFSC’s third showing of works produced by artists who finished the two-year program before embarking on art careers and is part of SFSC’s 50^th anniversary celebration. The exhibition opened Oct. 7 and runs through Dec. 2.

With the job market coming under increasing pressure from global competition, many college students glance over careers in art, focusing instead a technical or professional path to a job.

Max Gooding, a 2009 graduate of SFSC’s fine arts program, showed that a career in art pays. While at SFSC he studied drawing, watercolor painting, and illustration.

“I always wanted to know where my next meal was coming from,” said Gooding, 27, a red-head with matching beard who attended Lake Placid High School. “So, making money from my art was always a priority for me.”

Using his grounding in drawing and painting at SFSC as a springboard, Gooding went on to the University of Florida, where he studied landscape architecture. He now owns his own consulting company in Naples, Fla, where he combines the illustrative drawing and painting he learned at SFSC with landscape architecture, earning a clientele that includes builders of luxury homes and real estate developers.

“My company gives me financially security so now I can experiment with my own drawing when I am not collaborating with my clients on their projects,” Gooding said.

Artists need not only strike out on their own for success. Museums, higher education, and the nonprofit sector offer career opportunities for artists.

Whitney Broadaway, a Sebring High School graduate, completed her first two years of college at SFSC in 2007. She studied under veteran art professor Cathy Futral and Mollie Doctrow, the curator of college’s Museum of Florida Art and Culture, who also teaches illustration.

After earning her bachelor’s degree in fine arts at the University of Central Florida, Broadaway took a job at the university’s library restoring books, a skill she developed learning how to bind books for art projects. She recently landed the post of collections manager at the Orange County Regional History Center, where she serves the caretaker its artworks and exhibits.

Like Gooding, Broadaway relishes the opportunity to keep one foot in day-to-day artistic business while using her spare time to produce her own art. When not overseeing the center’s collection, Broadaway shows her own etchings at exhibitions and art festivals across central Florida.

“I hope there are current students here tonight,” Broadaway told the audience who had assembled for the program in SFSC’s University Center Auditorium. “Being an artist is really hard, but if you never stop making art, you can make it happen and succeed in your career.”

The alumni exhibition, which is on display at the Museum of Florida Art and Culture, features paintings, sculptures, digital media, and drawings. After the artists wrapped up their discussion, more than 100 visitors paced through MOFAC’s gallery to view the exhibits and meet the artists.

Students in SFSC art classes study pottery, drawing, painting, and art history. One recent SFSC graduate joined the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, others teach or work solo producing art for sale.

“What is most gratifying is to see these students coming back to SFSC and showing they built successful careers in art,” said Doctrow, who has overseen MOFAC’s collection since 2005.

“My hope is that our current students will learn from our alumni that they too can achieve success doing art,” said Doctrow.

AVON PARK, Fla.–Oct. 14, 2015–South Florida State College invites first through ninth-grade students on a science, technology, engineering, and mathematics adventure, STEMQuest. Students will explore the world of rare habitats, computer game development, and computer-based graphics in three science-packed classes on Saturday, Oct. 24, 9 a.m. – noon, on SFSC’s Highlands Campus.

Through fun activities and problem-solving challenges, students learn how to use science and math to discover the world around them, while gaining insight into career opportunities. Science, math, and computer science instructors teach all classes.

For first through third-graders, SFSC offers “Florida’s Big Backyard,” a three-hour outdoor exploration of Highlands County’s scrub habitat, one the state’s rarest natural environments. Students will learn about rare plants, practice observation skills, and act out animal behavior. Participants receive a Florida scrub coloring book.

For students in grades four through six, SFSC offers “Custom Gaming!” This classroom adventure is ideal for kids who have thought about creating their own computer game. This class will show students the mathematics programmers use to develop computer games.

Students in grades seven through nine will tap into their creative talents with “Computer Graphics,” an introduction to the cloud-based graphics application SUMO. Students will learn to create their own artwork by combining images, enhancing photos, learning basic graphic techniques, and more.

The cost is $20 for each student. For more information, contact Dr. Kimberly Batty-Herbert, at 863-784-7329 or email battyhek@southflorida.edu.

AVON PARK, Fla.–Oct. 13, 2015–SFSC will hold a two-person skins golf tournament to benefit SFSC athletics, Saturday, Nov. 21, beginning at 8:30 a.m., at the Sun ‘n Lake Golf and Country Club.

SFSC is putting on the tournament in partnership with the country club and its head golf pro Andy Kesling.

The entry fee is $75 per player and includes range balls, lunch, and SFSC hat or visor.

The tournament is flighted by a two-person handicap and each flight will have its own skins pot. Additional 50/50 drawing tickets can be purchased on the day of the tournament.

“We aim to have four or five flights, with about 10 two-person teams per flight to battle it out for a skins pot and first or second place in each flight,” said Rick Hitt, SFSC’s athletic director.

All proceeds will benefit SFSC Panther athletic teams. SFSC fields men’s baseball and women’s volleyball, softball, and cross country teams.

Download the flier and a two-person entry form at this link.  The entry form has payment information. The registration deadline is Nov. 16, 2015.

“Andy Kesling and the Sun ‘n Lake staff have been great to work with preparing for this event and we are looking forward to a great day,” Hitt said.

The Sun ‘n Lake Golf and Country Club is located at 5223 Sun ‘n Lake Blvd., Sebring.

For more information contact Andy Kesling at 863-385-4830 or Rick Hitt at 863-784-7036.

AVON PARK, Fla.–Oct. 6, 2015–The Alan Jay Wildstein Center for the Performing Arts at South Florida State College announces a new professional entertainment series sponsored by Florida Hospital Heartland Medical Center aimed toward families and fans of contemporary entertainment.

The new series, Florida Hospital Trending Now, joins the theater’s lineup of major evening shows, matinee events, and jazz performances already on tap for the 2015-16 season.

“Florida Hospital is a proud sponsor of the new SFSC theater series,” said Eric Stevens, CEO of Florida Hospital. “We look at our sponsorship of the series as an investment in the quality of life in Florida’s Heartland.  SFSC has established a great reputation for bringing excellent performing arts to Highlands County.”

The series kicks off Saturday, Nov. 7, 7 p.m. with a musical tribute to Billy Joel by the band Turnstiles. All seats for the series’ inaugural show are $10.

The Turnstiles, a seven-member band headed up by Tony Monaco, started recreating Billy Joel’s music with their debut performance in 2011.

“Anyone who loves Billy Joel’s music – It’s Still Rock and Roll to Me, Piano Man, Uptown Girl – should come out and sing and dance the night away,” said Cindy Garren, SFSC’s director of cultural programs.

The theatre will mount the holiday classic, The Nutcracker, Dec. 8, featuring the South Carolina Ballet, a professional company led by artistic director William Starrett. The performance will include a cast of local children.

January ushers in a New Year and the Willis Clan. The family of 12 have wowed audiences and captured the attention of critics with their mix of pop-country and bluegrass music.

“With a new reality TV show on TLC and a new CD in Walmart, the Willis Clan are becoming America’s new Von Trapp family,” Garren said.

Paul McCartney fans will delight in the Feb. 13 production by the group The McCartney Years, a six-member band who recreate the former Beatles’ music note-for-note.

“Only one show celebrates the genius of McCartney at the height of his career, and this show, praised by Beatles promoter Sid Bernstein, is the best on the scene today,” Garren said.

The two-time Grammy Award nominated Blue Highway return to SFSC by popular demand, Feb. 26, for an evening of bluegrass. After 20 years of recording and performing, the group has staked out role as one of the premier bluegrass groups on tour. Folk storyteller Judge Nelson Bailey opens for Blue Highway with his solo act Tales of Old Florida, a reminiscence on Florida’s frontier days.

“The support we have received from Florida Hospital for this new series signals how vital the performing arts are to a healthy and vibrant community,” Garren said.

Other sponsors of the Florida Hospital Trending Now Series are Marcia Ward, Highlands Today, and the SFSC Foundation, Inc.

Tickets are available online at www.sfscarts.org.   The SFSC box office opens Oct. 19, and tickets are available by calling 863-784-7178. The Alan Jay Wildstein Center for the Performing Arts at SFSC is located on the Highlands Campus, at 600 West College, Avon Park.